me. I am writing the best poems of my life; they will make my name..." Her husband later published her journals stating, "She knew she had made the leap." (Hughs 357)"Plath's acerbic wit that informs and propels the group of poems: "Daddy", "Medusa", "Cat", "Ariel", and "Lady Lazarus" among them. With "Daddy" and "Medusa" written back to back in a sort of dual exorcism, the self is once again at war." (Austin, 420) In "Medusa", like "Daddy", Plath displays wounds, then moves from a state of psychological bondage to freedom. Plath's suicide was not entirely caused or induced by events in her life. She was subject to numerous bouts of depression and breakdowns, one very significant breakdown she made the subject of her only novel, The Bell Jar. Her poetry is distinguishable in that is it often written from a voice -- and at times, when it is not, the cadence of a voice is present through the very stuff of a poem. The poem is then issued upon the reader from a speaker, from a speaker who is identified and characterised by what they say. The process of suicide thus fits well into that concept when we consider as Plath does, the complexities of the idea of suicide -- and the idea that the will of death, something man often struggles to understand in any way, can be present in man himself -- its implications and also the reality of it.It can be said that Plath's writings were in fact, her own story. Saturated with emotion, her poems relay deep feeling of many topics. Her versital style, which evolved to its peak near the end of her life, is quite unique, putting her in an elite class with such poets as Poe and Keats. It was once said that what Sylvia Plath most feared was what she most desired -- death. One cannot properly criticise her writing without first psychologically analyzing her to a point where she can be understood. In order to understand her pain in some of her works, it is important to know where the pain originates...
